May 22, 2017

Deborah Lipstadt accused Trump advisers of “soft Holocaust denial”

What is “soft Holocaust denial” you ask. I think that the person who wrote this news article meant to say “soft core Holocaust denial”.

The following quote is from the news article:

Begin quote

Writing in the Atlantic, Lipstadt – a leading expert on the Nazi effort to wipe out Europe’s Jews – took aim at the Trump administration for its failure last Friday to mention Jews as the primary victims of the Holocaust.

“Holocaust denial is alive and well in the highest offices of the United States,” wrote Lipstadt. “It is being spread by those in President Trump’s innermost circle. It may have all started as a mistake by a new administration that is loath to admit it’s wrong.

“Conversely, it may be a conscious attempt by people with antisemitic sympathies to rewrite history,” she added. “Either way it is deeply disturbing.”

Lipstadt’s intervention came in amid an escalating row over the White House’s statement on Holocaust Memorial Day. On Monday, Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, accused the media of a “pathetic” attempt to whip up controversy.
Deborah Lipstadt: ‘Many would like to stand up to antisemites. I had the chance to do it’

The historian said she had learned of the White House statement while in Amsterdam for a screening of Denial, starring Rachel Weisz as the historian and Timothy Spall as Irving, and had just passed the house where Anne Frank had hidden when her phone started buzzing with messages of the news.

Lipstadt wrote: “Though no fan of Trump, I chalked it up as a rookie mistake by a new administration busy issuing a slew of executive orders. Someone had screwed up … A clarification would certainly soon follow. I was wrong.”

Referring to the 10-week libel trial she won against Irving in 2000, she added: “The de-Judaization of the Holocaust, as exemplified by the White House statement, is what I term softcore Holocaust denial.

“Hardcore denial is the kind of thing I encountered in the courtroom. In an outright and forceful fashion, Irving denied the facts of the Holocaust.”